Excerpts from Modern Romance: An Investigation
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The transformation of our romantic lives cannot be explained by technology alone; there’s much more to the story. In a very short period of time, the whole culture of finding love and a mate has radically changed.
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For most of the history of our species, courtship and marriage weren’t really about two individuals finding love and fulfillment.
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Searching for a soul mate takes a long time and requires enormous emotional investment. The problem is that this search for the perfect person can generate a lot of stress. Younger generations face immense pressure to find the “perfect person” that simply didn’t exist in the past when “good enough” was good enough.
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We come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide
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The numbers show that men are still overwhelmingly the ones expected to initiate the first ask. In 2012 only 12 percent of American women had asked anyone out in the previous year.
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Younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation.
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As a medium, it’s safe to say, texting facilitates flakiness and rudeness and many other personality traits that would not be expressed in a phone call or an in-person interaction.
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We repeatedly found that one text can change the whole dynamic of a budding relationship. In a certain context, even just saying something as innocuous as “Hey, let’s hang out sometime” or spelling errors or punctuation choices can irritate someone.
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Texting, unlike an in-person conversation, is not a forgiving medium for mistakes. Even small tweaks of a text message can make the difference between being perceived as nice or mean, smart or dumb, funny or boring.
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Even on the phone you can hear a change in someone’s voice or a pause to let you know how they are interpreting what you’ve said. In text, your mistake just sits there marinating on the other person’s screen, leaving a lasting record of your ineptitude and bozoness.
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Want to know what’s filling up the phones of nearly every single woman? It’s this: “Hey,” “Hey!” Heyyy!!” “Hey what’s going?” “Wsup,” “Wsup!” “What’s going on?” “Whatcha up to?”
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Another irritating situation that plagues both men and women is the endless texting banter that never leads to a meet in the real world.
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“It’s becoming too common for guys to ask girls to ‘hang out’ rather than directly asking them on a date,” said one woman. “I’m not sure if it’s because guys are afraid of rejection or because they want to seem casual about it, but it can leave one (or both) people unsure about whether or not they’re even on a date.”
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Several people subscribed to the notion of doubling the response time. (They write back in five minutes, you wait ten, etc.) This way you achieve the upper hand and constantly seem busier and less available than your counterpart.
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So basically, if you are the guy or girl who texts back immediately, you are taken for granted and ultimately lower your value as a reward. As a result, the person doesn’t feel as much of an urge to text you
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People tend to discount and sometimes even reject the things that are always available.
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Why do we want what we can’t have and sometimes have more attraction to people when they seem a little distant or disinterested?
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Online dating is like a second job that requires knowledge and skills that very few of us have. In fact, most of us have no clue what we’re doing. One reason is that people don’t always know what they’re looking for in a soul mate.
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Despite all the nuanced information that people put up on their profiles, the factor that people rely on most when preselecting a date is looks. Based on the data he has reviewed, Rudder told us that he estimates that photos drive 90 percent of the action in online dating.
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“People are not products,” she said bluntly. “But, essentially, when you say, ‘I want a guy that’s six foot tall and has blah, blah, blah characteristics,’ you’re treating a human being like one.”
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"He mentioned that he listens to Kevin & Bean in the morning. And it was like, okay, you’re done.” One radio-show choice had killed any chance of this relationship prospering.
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One night he texted her and said, “I have this big head of cabbage. How should I cook this?” I asked if this was maybe a very, very lame, roundabout dinner-date invitation—to ask her to come over for cabbage. “No, he was really asking me how to cook cabbage,” she moaned.
